Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced three architects shortlisted for this year's prestigious Wheelwright Prize. The $100,000 grant, which is awarded annually to a single architect to support travel-based architectural research, is “intended to spur innovative research during the early stage of an architect’s professional career” and “foster new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement.”
Similarly to previous years, the shortlisted applicants were chosen from nearly 200 submitters spanning 51 countries. Each finalist will be invited to speak at Harvard GSD on April 16 (starting at noon) to present their work and research proposals. The event will be free and open to the public. A winner will be announced at the end of April.
“The strength and diversity of the applications are growing each year, making the jury’s job increasingly difficult,” said K. Michael Hays, Wheelwright Prize organizing committee member and 2015 jury chair. “It’s gratifying to see so many young architects approach their work as part of larger intellectual projects.”
The shortlisted architects are...
Erik L’Heureux — Pencil Office, Singapore
BA in Architecture 1996, Washington University; MArch 2000, Princeton University
Erik L’Heureux is currently an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore, where he researches building envelopes in equatorial climates. He taught previously in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union. He is a registered architect in the U.S., and is NCARB-certified and LEED-accredited. He has won numerous design awards including the 2013 World Architecture Festival (WAF) Category Design Award, the 2013 FuturArc Green Leadership Architecture Merit Award, 2012 AIA New York City Design Merit Award, and 2011 President’s Design Award from Singapore. He co-curated and designed the exhibition 1,000 Singapores: A Model of the Compact City, which first appeared at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, and which will be presented later this year at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris. He is also a contributing editor to Architectural Review Asia Pacific and has published in several publications worldwide. Wheelwright proposal: Hot and Wet: The Equatorial City and the Architectures of Atmosphere.
Malkit Shoshan — FAST, Amsterdam
BArch 2004, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology; current Ph.D. candidate TU Delft–Delft University of Technology
Malkit Shoshan is the founder of the Amsterdam-based architectural think-tank FAST (Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory). Her work explores the relationship between architecture, politics, and human rights. She is the author of the award-winning book Atlas of Conflict: Israel-Palestine (Uitgeverij 010, 2010) and coauthor of Village: One Land Two Systems and Platform Paradise (Damiani Editore, 2014). She is a member of the editorial board of Footprint, the TU Delft architecture theory journal and her work has been published inVolume, Abitare, Frame, Haaretz, New York Times, and other publications. She has also exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2002, 2008), the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2007), Experimenta (2011), and the Het Nieuwe Instituut (2014). As a research fellow at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, she is working on a long-term research project entitled Drones and Honeycombs, a study of the architecture and landscape of war and peace. Wheelwright proposal:Architecture and Conflict: Pre-Cycling the Compound
Quynh Vantu — Studio Quynh Vantu, London
BArch 2001, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; MArch 2009, Cranbrook Academy of Art; current Ph.D. candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture–University College London
Quynh Vantu is a licensed architect and artist with a studio-based practice devoted to spatial experimentation. Drawing from her upbringing in the American South, Vantu is particularly interested in the notion of hospitality and thresholds of social interaction. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a Worldstudio AIGA Grant (2009) and the Stewardson Kefee LeBrun Travel Grant-AIA NY (2009–10). She has been awarded several artist residencies, including at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska (2010); Olafur Eliasson’s Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin, Germany (2010–11); the Gyeonggi Creation Center in Dabudo, South Korea (2012); the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine (2012); the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina (2014); and the Norrköping AIR in Sweden (2014). She was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study in the UK (2012–13), and of a University College London Scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Wheelwright proposal: On Movement: The Threshold and Its Shaping of Culture and Spatial Experience.
The 2015 Wheelwright Prize Jury:
- K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Harvard GSD (Jury Chair)
- Craig Evan Barton, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Director of the Design School at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University
- Preston Scott Cohen, Gerald M. McCue Professor at Harvard GSD and principal of his eponymous Cambridge-based firm
- Sarah Herda, Director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts and co-artistic director of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (opening October 2015)
- Elisa Silva, founder of Enlace Arquitectura and winner Arthur C. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 2011. (For extended juror biographies, please visit wheelwrightprize.org.)
Past winners includes Jose Ahedo (2014) for his proposal Domesticated Grounds: Design and Domesticity Within Animal Farming Systems and Gia Wolff (2013) for her proposal Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats. Wolff will be presenting her research from the past two years, also on April 16 at the Piper Auditorium at 6PM as part of Harvard GSD's Spring Lecture series.
Finalist descriptions via Wheelwright.org
